Other MMA Organizations News - Page 81

Do you have a hot MMA story or news item that you have found and would like to share?
Then read our guidelines then post it to our MMA News Share Forum to have it display here for the community to read on this page.

The next season of Bellator Fighting Championships now has the first of several title fights set, as Featherweight Champion Joe Soto will defend against season 2 tournament winner Joe Warren at Bellator 27 on 9/2. Verbal agreements in place, paperwork pending. The fight will likely be the main event.

Brad Morris will replace Bob Sapp and meet fellow countryman Soa Palelei at Impact FC 2 this Saturday in Sydney, Australia.
Sapp fell off the card after being told by promoters it would be too expensive for him to be flown in from Bulgaria to Sydney, MMAjunkie.com reported Wednesday evening.
MMAFighting.com has since learned that Morris has agreed to be the replacement, setting up a rematch from both heavyweight's MMA debuts. On a local card in September 2002, Morris (10-4) lost by TKO to Palelei (9-2).

"For three weeks, we tried to get Bob to commit to flight dates and sign a contract. He never actually signed the contract we sent him weeks ago. We needed to have this stuff taken care of weeks ago. You get on the phone with Bob, and two hours later, nothing gets accomplished. Bob is a business guy, too. He knows that sometimes things happen that make deals untenable. You can't just get three plane tickets out Sofia, especially for Bob Sapp. He's 350 pounds; he can't fly coach. Getting all the right connecting flights out of Bulgaria can't just be done last minute. The tickets were getting more expensive, but it was never a price issue. Bob was actually very reasonable about money. It was the logistics and time. None of this would've been an issue if he wasn't in Bulgaria. That made the logistics really hard: there were major visa issues for these guys coming to Australia, they had to be consulate-issued. We just weren't getting the help we needed from Bob to get it done properly."

10-time UFC competitor and The Ultimate Fighter 4 veteran Rich Clementi will make his Bellator debut in front of hometown fans when the promotion arrives in New Orleans, La. for Bellator 28 on Sept. 9, MMAFighting.com has learned.

Gargantuan heavyweight and entertainment personality Bob Sapp (11-6-1) today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that he has been pulled from a fight with Soa Palelei (9-2) at "Impact FC 2: The Uprising - Sydney."
Sapp, who is currently in Bulgaria after recently completing work on a remake of "Conan the Barbarian," said he received an email today from the Australian MMA startup informing him that the promotion would not fly him to Sydney for the July 18 fight because the plane ticket is too expensive.

As expected, Keith Jardine has landed on his feet. Less than a month after being released from the UFC following his TUF 11 Finale loss to Matt Hamill on June 19 in Las Vegas, "The Dean of Mean" has agreed to throw hands with another Octagon veteran when he takes on Trevor Prangley at Shark Fights 13 on Sept. 11 in Lubbock, Texas. Shark Fights is expected to make an official announcement regarding the September event in the coming days, including additional names signed for the pay-per-view telecast.

Neil "Goliath" Grove - a South African-born former rugby player who fought for the UFC during that organization's visit to his adopted hometown of London last year - will make his U.S. debut as part of Bellator Fighting Championships' upcoming Season 3 Heavyweight Tournament. Grove, who stands six feet, six inches tall and has fought at as big as 280 lbs. in the U.K., has compiled an overall pro record of 8-2-1 since turning pro 3 ½ years ago with all eight of his wins coming via KO or TKO. He earned widespread recognition throughout Europe early on in his career following a highlight-reel 10-second KO of former EliteXC, Pride and Sengoku headliner James Thompson and followed that up with an impressive TKO of UFC veteran James McSweeney. Grove is the fourth confirmed participant in Bellator's forthcoming Season 3 Heavyweight Tournament.

After a successful U.S. debut earlier in the year, the Moosin promotion is scheduling an Oct. 9 follow-up, which will take place in Chicago, MMA Fighting has learned.
Moosin executive Corey Fischer has confirmed the organization's intention for a second show, and said the current plans include bringing back previous headliners Tim Sylvia and Mariusz Pudzianowski, in separate fights.
If Moosin gets their way, they'll come to the Second City with Sylvia fighting 7-foot-2 Korean Hong Man Choi, and five-time "World's Strongest Man" Pudzianowski taking on popular former EliteXC and UFC star Kimbo Slice in feature bouts.

That's right, War Machine fans-you've got one last chance to see your man fight before he's off to jail for a year. Brad Blackburn, who was to have faced John Alessio at next week's Tachi Palace Fights 5 event, is now off due to injury. Machine will be the replacement, and will go for his 7th win in his last 8 fights before he reportedly is off to San Diego for a year in jail because of suspiscion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Two weeks ago, budding female prospect Zoila Frausto wasn't even a part of Bellator Fighting Championships' upcoming 115-pound female tournament.
Now – courtesy of a devastating knockout of Rosi Sexton – Frausto is in the tournament and already training for a planned matchup on Aug. 19.
The "Warrior Princess" today told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) that the promotion intends to match her up against Jessica Pene (7-0 MMA, 1-0 BFC) at Bellator 25.

Former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver will meet Diego Garijo in a featured matchup at Powerhouse World Promotions “War on the Mainland” on Aug. 14 at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.
Pulver has lost five consecutive fights, leading many to speculate he might opt for retirement. The 35-year-old was released by World Extreme Cagefighting following his submission loss to Javier Vazquez at WEC 47 in March. Though he remains one of the sport’s most popular figures, Pulver has not survived the first round in any of his past four appearances. Still, his resume speaks for itself, highlighted by wins against former two-division UFC champion B.J. Penn, one-time WEC featherweight titlist Cole Escovedo, “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 2 winner Joe Stevenson and former Shooto welterweight titleholder Caol Uno. More than half (13) of Pulver’s 22 career victories have come by knockout or technical knockout.
In Garijo, he faces an unproven commodity. A Total Combat and Bellator Fighting Championships veteran, he has not competed since he submitted Saad Awad with a first-round rear-naked choke at Bellator 10 in June 2009. Based out of The Arena Mixed Martial Arts gym in San Diego, Garijo trains alongside former EliteXC lightweight champion Karl James Noons, 2007 Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championships winner Rani Yahya and 2004 Olympic silver medalist Stephan Abas. In five professional appearances, the once-beaten Garijo has never gone the distance.
In the main event, two-time UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia will lock horns with the well-traveled Paul Buentello.

The future got a lot less "Rosi" for Rosi Sexton last night. Not only did Zolio Frausto highlight-reel KO her at Bellator 23, but Frausto also KO'd her out of next season's Bellator Women's Tournament. Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney says Sexton will sit the tournament out as a result (Sexton also got a 60 day medical suspension) and Frausto will be considered as a replacement, but she's not guaranteed to be in.

Aside from Court McGee being crowned "The Ultimate Fighter 11" champion, the biggest news coming out of this past weekend's UFC event was Matt Hamill's clearance to fight despite an active Staph infection.
Hamill appeared at The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale weigh-ins on Friday with a noticeable lesion on his lower back, and following his win over Keith Jardine on Saturday, he and Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer confirmed the infection.
In his latest "Ask the Fight Doc" installment, MMAjunkie.com medical columnist Dr. Johnny Benjamin wonders how that was possible and why so many others were unnecessarily put at risk.
In my opinion, the NSAC was victim of a poor medical decision. Furthermore, every athlete (including Hamill) and referee that entered the octagon – with or after Hamill – was unnecessarily exposed to a potentially very serious and deadly infection by the "licensed doctor" who cleared him to compete.

It took a while but the official fighter payouts from last month's Moosin MMA event were finally released yesterday. The total disclosed payouts were $237,100 via 3919 paid attendance, with the largest share-$110,000-going to main event loser Mariusz Pudzianowski. Despite beating Pudz in the main event, winner Tim Sylvia only made $50,000 for his efforts.

Jared Hess will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery next week for a gruesome knee injury he suffered in the second round of Bellator's season-two middleweight tournament, the promotion announced Friday.
Hess (11-2 MMA, 3-2 BFC), 26, sustained a third-degree tear of his lateral collateral ligament (LCL) in the first frame of his fight with Alexander Shlemenko, which took this past Thursday at Bellator 20.

Bellator Fighting Championships featherweight contender Joe Warren (4-1 MMA, 2-0 BFC) has impressed MMA observers in his current run with a controlling style and an unrelenting pace.
But despite a pair of Bellator season two wins over Georgi Karakhanyan and Eric Marriott, the former Greco-Roman wrestling world champion says he's still figuring out the game of mixed martial arts.
Give him a little more time, Warren says, and he'll be nearly unstoppable – especially when he drops down to a more natural weightclass.

Bellator Fighting Championships recently began a push into women’s mixed martial arts announcing the signing of Megumi Fuji and Rosi Sexton, widely regarded as two of the top female fighters in the world.
Late last week, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney talked with a little bit more detail regarding the promotion’s plans for an eight-woman tournament.
“The goal and the entire idea was to put together a tournament with the greatest female fighters in the world: Megumi Fuji, Rosi Sexton we’ve announced; Jessica Penne, Lisa Ward, as well.”
I think Bellator has been doing great job and with Strikeforce really dropping the ball in alot of ways Bellator is in a great position to slide into the number two spot. I just wish I could see the fights on Thursday nights...Comcast has not been airing them at all where I live...the format is great and will definitely be sending guys into the UFC before too long...and they can really capitalize on the womens division...its always been said that a tourney would be a great way to develop the division quickly and now they are making it happen....what is wrong with Strikeforce?

A lot of competitors can talk a good game, but the true test of a fighter is how he performs in the ring. We have heard a lot about EA Sports MMA, from the developer’s goals when crafting the game to detailed descriptions about the controls, but it wasn’t until yesterday at the EA3 event that we were able to take the Xbox 360 controller and step into the ring. Read on for our impressions of how the controls feel, as well as more details on how submissions are handled (hint: frantic button mashers need not apply).